Voit bares even more 'chest moss' after go-ahead HR

SAN DIEGO – At first, Noé Ramirez had the right idea. Facing Luke Voit with the game hanging in the balance on Saturday night, Ramirez started him off with a changeup below the zone. Then he threw another changeup at the knees, then a curveball, then another change at the ankles. Lots of junk -- that’s how the D-backs have pitched Voit all season.

The Padres’ slugger whiffed at one of those changeups, and he fouled off the curve. Ramirez worked his way into a count of two balls, two strikes, and that’s when the D-backs’ right-hander decided to try to sneak a fastball past Voit at the top of the zone.

Bad idea.

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You just don’t groove belt-high, 90 mph fastballs over the heart of the plate to dudes with biceps -- and “chest lettuce” -- like Luke Voit. When you do, they tend to end up a dozen rows deep in the left-field seats.

And so it was. Voit pulverized Ramirez’s fastball -- 110 mph off the bat -- for a three-run homer in the bottom of the sixth inning. It proved to be the decisive blow in the Padres’ 4-3 victory over the D-backs at Petco Park.

“They brought me over here to mash,” said Voit, who has slumped to a .219/.309/.404 slash line this season with 11 homers. “Unfortunately I haven’t done that this year. But it’s good to feel like myself again.”

When he touched home plate, Voit, having undone an extra button or two, flung open the top of his jersey. On the call, Padres TV play-by-play man Don Orsillo was in sync with the moment, proclaiming, “Luke Voit and his chest moss have just left the building!”

That chest moss is a relatively new feature to Voit’s game.

“A couple weeks ago, I was like, ‘I’ve got to change something,’” Voit said. “So I unbuttoned. It’s fun. It’s fun for the fans, and obviously the guys in the booth have fun with it, too. We’re show business. It’s what it’s all about.

“And I’ve got good chest lettuce. I’ve got to let it go.”

That! Right there! That’s the Luke Voit the Padres have been lacking, the self-assured slugger, mashing taters, and perhaps flaunting his chest lettuce a bit, too.

“It’s middle-of-the-order power,” said Padres manager Bob Melvin. “It’s something we’ve lacked all year, as far as the game-changing three-run homer in a close game. And it came up big. That’s what power guys do. They tend to strike out some. And, next thing you know, it’s one swing of the bat, and it’s three runs on the board.”

The Padres have been lacking that type of swing far too often this season. They’ve constructed a roster with a deep pitching staff, a generally solid defense (albeit one that has struggled lately) and an offense that tends to reach base. But they’ve underperformed woefully in the power department.

San Diego’s 76 home runs this season rank 25th in the Majors, and its .374 slugging percentage ranks 27th. The next month or so will be all about the ways in which the Padres can improve upon those numbers.

First and foremost, they need superstar shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. to return from his fractured left wrist (and, on that front, they got some positive news on Friday). Beyond that, their first priority ahead of the Trade Deadline will be acquiring some thump.

“It’s no secret, we’ve got to score some more runs here in the second half, and that will be a focus for us over the next couple weeks,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller said Friday. “Hoping most of the answers are coming from within, but if not, we’re also out there scouting hard and seeing what’s out there on the trade front.”

It’s a near certainty that Preller will add at least one bat at the Deadline. With an acquisition or two, plus the impending return of Tatis, the Padres’ lineup should look very different a month from now.

But their lineup also looks different when they get this version of Voit, who spent his pregame on Friday hitting off the machine, as he worked to lower his stance and be a bit less erratic with his swing.

“Something had to change,” Voit said. “This is obviously the worst start of a season I’ve ever had, the worst first half of a season. I just feel like the ball wasn’t carrying as much for me. I feel like I had to go back to the drawing board. … Sometimes you’ve just got to go back and work, try new things and try stuff out. It’s working good.”